Montaigne's Wisdom: Be Honest with Yourself

Don't dress yourself up—see yourself as you are _ Only by accepting even your flaws and whims can you truly see yourself

Don't dress yourself up to impress others

I did not write this book to win the world's favor or to raise my name. From the start I declared it a private book for my family and friends. I wanted them, even after I am gone, to meet in these pages the traces of my character and temperament again. Had praise been my purpose, I would have decked myself out more handsomely. But a portrait made that way is not the real me; it is a figure polished to catch people's eyes. I wanted to appear in my simple, natural, ordinary form. If the subject I am painting is myself, then it seemed right, first of all, not to adorn it. So I tried to leave my flaws and imperfections as they are. When people speak of themselves, they easily pick out only the good parts and erase the uncomfortable ones. Edit yourself that way, and you come to believe in the self you made for others more than in the self you really are.

That does not mean honesty is confessing every secret to anyone. I, too, said I would reveal myself only as far as the courtesy of the world allows. Hiding one's private life is a different thing from pretending to be nobler than one really is. I tell the reader: the subject of this book is none other than myself.